"Events" going "far too far into inhumanity". This is how Marlène Schiappa described on Facebook the irruption in front of her home in Le Mans a procession of "yellow vests" in the night from Friday 24 to Saturday 25 May. Citing "aggressive slogans", "death threats", and the "trauma" of her children, the secretary of state announced her intention to file a complaint. Two months later, the heads of prosecutions against six protesters, summoned before the criminal court Wednesday afternoon, are much lower.
"Standing in there, wake up"
Two people appear for "sound aggression", two for "organization of an undeclared demonstration" and two for "sexist insults", but none for threats. Europe 1 has also been able to view images of a live Facebook event, since removed from social networks at the request of Marlene Schiappa, for invasion of privacy. The video, lasting three hours, shows a group of a few dozen people, including children, walking at night in the streets of Le Mans with a banner: "declared public interest event".
Between whistles and slogans hostile to the government - "Emmanuel Macron, we'll break everything at your place" -, the procession is noisy. A little more than two hours after the beginning of the video, it marks a stop in front of a house: "standing in there, have to wake up!". The demonstrator filming the scene tells the spectators on Facebook that it is the home of Marlène Schiappa. Some firecrackers are lit and insults fuse but the "yellow vests" remain on the sidewalk opposite, without approaching the entrance, except for a man who sticks a poster on the door. No blow is struck against the windows, contrary to what the Secretary of State said on Facebook.
A sequence of about three minutes
Marlène Schiappa's husband then walks out the door and speaks briefly to the demonstrators, who do not approach him. Three minutes after the beginning of the sequence, the "yellow vests" leave, continuing to sing and shout slogans. "We decided to make all the houses of the elected officials of the Republic in Marche de la Sarthe," says the man who films, giving the time to a user who asks the question in comment: "00h31".
In her message posted on Facebook three days after the fact, the Secretary of State evoked her two daughters and one of their friends, "terrorized" by this episode. "The children pulled out of sleep woke up crying and screaming and came running because I let you imagine the effect on sleeping children of detonation noises coupled with the striking noises on the doors / windows and" Schiappa they came to kill you! "and assimilated them to their mother," she wrote. Between different versions, it is now up to the courts to decide.